Soy What?

There seems to be a bit of confusion around the consumption of soy and soy products. I believe the major reason is perhaps a lack of specificity or precision in terminology. I’ll share with you what experts are saying and where the cross talk is occurring.

Let’s start with Dr. Starch aka Dr. McDougal a pioneer in the plant based movement. He is concerned about soy consumption but at the same time offers one of the most delicious soy burger recipes. Basically he says, limit soy to 5-10% of calorie consumption.

The problem is we don’t know what period of time to apply the 5% – lifetime? meal? daily? The other problem is he uses soy in the most general sense. However, it was 2005 and we now know more. I think if we replaced his use of the term soy with “soy protein isolate”, which he mentions in the newsletter, the recommendation would be more clear. Avoid soy protein isolate.

Now let’s blast forward to 2012, it looks like 3-5 servings a day of soybeans, tofu or tempeh is just fine. So go ahead and try Dr.M’s burger recipe found here: